maybe i'll tell you sometime
by garyprestons
Summary: Takes place immediately following the Series 3 finale, so spoilers ahead. Rating is for Part 2.
1. where you'll find me

_Well a hearty hello to you all! Don't get too comfortable, we've got to make this quick. Previously in my life, my sweet Marple came back from Africa and proposed to me. Which would be lovely if not for the fact that Gary and I finally, finally, got it together and started a relationship. Oh, he still hasn't said those three little words back, but I'm willing to be patient. So there we all are, Mike's down on one knee, and Gary gets right down there with him! Mum's pressuring me to choose, but it's not so easy! Right, caught up then? On with the show!_

So this is what it's come down to: surrounded by family and friends, with two men vying for her hand. Oh, why of all things did it have to be a love triangle! It was easier when she was dating Mike – they were a cozy little line segment, just the two of them, and Gary was off the grid entirely. Now it's an actual triangle, and Miranda was never really that great at maths.

She knows one proposal is sincere, from a man who believes she's deeply in love with him. The other is a risky gamble, from a man who _knows_ she's deeply in love with him. But only minutes ago Gary hadn't even been able to say the L-word, and now he's on bended knee and looking up at her and she looks from his face, to Mike's, back again, and this is too difficult and confusing and she can't break anyone's heart in front of a crowd.

"Miranda?"

It's not Mike or Gary this time, it's Stevie, watching her carefully for her reaction.

"Right then, um. Thank you? Erm, I think we need to talk. That's to both of you, by the way." She's still lightly holding Mike's wrist and he's still holding the ring, and oh god this is going to be so hard. "Flip a coin to see who goes first? Shall we draw straws? No, let's just…" She takes a breath and looks down at Mike, whose eyes are so kind and earnest and even after her minor panic attack, there's a glimmer of hope that she'll say yes, that she'll choose him.

"Right, boyfriend first," she manages to choke out, and he rises, slipping the ring back into his pocket, and immediately she feels like she can relax now that it's hidden out of sight. He takes her hand and she still feels that warmth there, and that will never go away, not completely. The guests move aside to let them leave, and as they walk past Gary hand in hand, she sees the look of hurt and confusion on his face.

"Give us a few, then stop by?" she asks him quietly, and he nods at her without saying anything.

They don't speak as they walk next door and up to her flat. She turns on the lights, pleased that it's hers once more. It feels strange sitting on the sofa with him after she and Gary had been there only an hour ago, his hand up her blouse and both finally giving into the desperate passion they'd been fighting for years. She caught herself beginning to dwell on that pleasant thought and inwardly berated herself. Time and a place, Miranda.

The silence stretches between them for a long moment before she speaks.

"Mike, I need to tell you—"

She doesn't get a chance to finish, because he interrupts her quickly. "Don't say it. You don't have to. Just tell me: that 'I love you' from a few weeks ago, before I left. That was meant for him, wasn't it?"

He's so, so hurt, she can hear it in his voice, can see it in his eyes, but he's being so strong that she feels foolish and weak for being so upset about having to end it. It's not her heart that's breaking. Repeatedly punched and stepped on, yes, but it's relatively intact.

"I'm so sorry, Marple," she whispers, and feels his hand slide out from underneath hers. "I'm sorry I never told you. I kept trying, but it never seemed the right time – although, really, when's the right time to tell someone that… although you are so wonderful, and lovely, and you loved me in spite of how I am… I shared more of myself with you than I have with anyone in practically forever. But I'm not in love with you. When is it ever the right time for that?" She's fighting back tears now, because it's all true, every word of it. That if Gary hadn't been in the picture, those three little words would have been so easy to say, and they'd be meant for him, and not someone else.

His eyes are wet. "Well, maybe before he buys the ring," he jokes feebly, and she wants to throw her arms around him and cry into his shoulder for what could have been, what she wishes more than anything she could give him. She can only hope that he'll find the person who can, someday, soon. "I just want you to be happy, Quirky." And his pet name for her makes her cry instead of smile like it used to, because she's just broken his heart and he's trying to help her fix her own.

When he stands up, she sees him quickly brush at his cheek and she's pretty sure she's on her way to hating herself for this: breaking up with someone after he's just proposed to her.

She walks him to the door and he presses a kiss to her forehead, and then he's gone, the door closing behind him. There's an ache in her chest that makes it hard to breathe. She feels like the most awful person in the entire world.

But she is, for the moment, still alive.

She sinks back down onto the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest and letting herself have a bit of a weep with nobody around to see. She's supposed to be happy about Gary, and she is, but at the same time she's just hurt someone that she cares about, and it's all just conflicting and confusing, really. And she still needs to sort things out with Gary.

She knows, deep down, that while she's been given two proposals, at the end of the day she won't have accepted either of them.


	2. where we'll shine

She's still wallowing when she hears the door to her flat open. He makes it across the room to the sofa in a matter of seconds, and the cushion dips under his weight when he sits down beside her. She hastily wipes the last few tears off of her cheeks and turns to him, and Gary looks alarmed.

"You're crying."

"I just broke his heart," she replies. "I mean, I know I had to do it, had to be done, but…" She's aware she probably shouldn't be crying over an ex in front of Gary, but all he does is wrap both arms around her and pull her to his chest much like he did weeks ago when she was ill and he came to visit. She curls up against him, letting his taller frame wrap around her protectively.

When she finally feels calmer, she presses her hands gently to his chest to steady herself and looks up at him, her eyes now clear but her mind anything but. His warm hands cradle her cheeks, thumbs brushing softly over the dried tears on her face, and he leans in to kiss her. Just as she feels his lips touch hers, she pulls back, although it takes all of her willpower to do so.

"Miranda?"

But the attraction is so magnetic, and the fact that they can now kiss freely so alluring, and she finds herself drawn to him again the instant he says her name. And this time she lets herself have it, at least for a few seconds, until she realizes once more why she hesitated in the first place.

"Wait." They pull apart, Gary looking deliciously rumpled and also very confused. "Sorry, it's just, are we not going to talk about what happened downstairs?"

"Oh." He deflates slightly, nodding slowly. "Yeah, um, I guess we… probably should."

"Why did you think you needed to propose?" she asks. "Gary, you know that's not what I'm looking for. Sure, Mum would love it if I brought home a man with a ring on my finger, but _you_ know that's not who I am." She remembers telling him as much the day she ran into him again after opening the shop; sitting at the restaurant catching up on the six years of their lives they'd spent apart after graduating together.

"You said I needed to man up, emotionally. Actually, Tilly said the same thing when she was on her 'life coach' kick. She told me I was a commitment phobe, and she was right."

"Gary, an hour ago you couldn't even tell me that you loved me. And then you proposed marriage!"

"Because I thought that's what you wanted!" he bursts out, and she can see he's struggling to find the words. And she's trying so hard to be patient with him, as she promised she would…

"Gary, all I want is you. It's always been you," she says quietly, echoing his earlier words. "I just want to be with you. I don't need marriage, or the white picket fence, or even an I love you if you're really not ready to say it yet. I just need you."

They're both quiet for a moment, letting one another's words sink in, before Gary takes her hand in his and shifts closer to her on the sofa.

"Miranda, if I hadn't kissed you, if I hadn't told you… and he proposed. Would you have said yes?"

"Of course not!" she immediately insists. "Why would I marry him when I'm in love with you?"

He kisses her, hard, and even though they've spent most of the evening snogging, it still makes her heart race and her temperature spike. A part of her still can't believe they can actually do this now, just grab one another and kiss, and it's all so perfectly normal and not a fantasy. The real thing is honestly better than any of her fantasies, and she's had many of them. She can feel the relief and the desperation in the way he pulls her against him, mouth slanted over hers as they kiss passionately.

He's kissing her like he has something to prove, and she realizes that he does: he's trying to tell her that he loves her even though the words won't come out. He drags his lips down along her jaw and then suddenly, they do.

"I love you."

They freeze, his breath coming fast and nervous against her neck, her own breathing uneven and quick.

"Are you sure?" she whispers, afraid of the answer. He softly kisses her neck, just once, before shifting so they're face to face again. "I don't mean to push, I just…"

"No, it's okay. I needed to be pushed. You deserve to know it, you deserve to hear it. And I'm sorry I didn't man up straight away. I love you, Miranda." They move toward one another simultaneously, and this time the kiss is slower, deeper, less desperate but still scorchingly passionate. She's so happy she feels like she could float away, that Gary is the only thing holding her tethered to the earth, and as long as he never lets go of her, she'll never leave him.

They fall back onto the sofa together, Miranda above him, fingers unbuttoning his plaid shirt as his hands slide up her sides over her ribs and then pull at her sweater until it slips off of her shoulders. And this is so much more wonderful than any of her fantasies, because in the end she doesn't want something from a movie, she just wants Gary. _Her _Gary.

They're sorting out the next layers of clothing when he sits up and pulls her onto his lap, and now they're upright and back to kissing, and she feels him pressing against her and oh, hello, that makes things significantly less awkward because she's been wondering if it's really going to go this way that quickly. Not that she doesn't want to, see earlier musing about her fantasies, but today's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster and she's not sure what exactly is going to happen.

Dimly she remembers that they're all next door continuing the party without them. She doesn't care. She did lock the front door, though. Or did she? No, Gary came right in after Mike left. And the last thing she wants is for Stevie or Tilly or worse, her mum walking in on them in the throes of passion.

Her blouse lands on the floor next to the sofa, followed by his other shirt, and now she can let her eyes wander as much as she likes, because she's up close and personal with his bare chest, all the smooth warm skin and muscle and she's almost afraid to touch him at first before she glances up and sees him staring at her chest.

"Wow," he manages to get out, and she doesn't even blush this time.

"You only found one remote control," she reminds him, and her voice sounds a lot more suggestive than she intends. Now she does blush, and Gary just shakes his head, grinning, and reaches for her, hands cupping her breasts through her bra before he reaches behind her for the clasp. And in the instant it comes off and joins the small pile of clothes, she's pressed up to him, and oh, it feels even nicer with both of them like this, bare skin against bare skin and her womanly curves and his firm, lovely, manly everything.

"You know the door's unlocked," she finally blurts out, and he frowns slightly in confusion before realizing what she means.

"Stevie does have a key to your flat, right?" he asks, still moving his hands over her bare skin, which makes it hard to put syllables together into words.

"Um, she does. But not to the bedroom," she suggests helpfully, with more than a little adrenaline and arousal coursing through her body.

By the time they make it across the room (Gary locking the front door as he kisses her up against it) and into her bedroom, they're down to their pants, the rest of their clothes strewn around the flat. The sound of the door locking behind them is loud in the quiet of her bedroom, a finality to it saying that there's no turning back, that they've crossed the threshold (literally) and the only way to move is forward. Together.

They tumble down onto her bed together, rumpling the flowered duvet and knocking the pillows askew in the process, but that doesn't stop him from lowering her down onto them and kissing her as his body covers hers completely. The electricity in the air is thick as they finish undressing one another and she hears him murmur another quiet "wow" under his breath as he looks at her beneath him. Her hand sneaks down his back to his butt – his perfect butt that really is second to none – and gives it a slight squeeze, and he laughs against her and it's so comfortable and easy being like this with him.

They only pause from their kissing and exploring for her to open the drawer on her bedside table to locate the necessary safety precautions, and for a brief second she's embarrassed because of the reason that led to her actually having them on hand. Because she's been like this with someone else, and fairly recently too. But she pushes the doubt aside – she's a strong, sensual woman, and she can't help it if someone's wanted a bit of this before Gary got to her.

The feeling when he finally slips into her is indescribable in that there are a thousand words that flicker into her head but none of them can truly do it right. And she knows, absolutely, with every part of her, that it's the difference when you're with someone who you love more than anything. And she's not going to even think about comparing Gary to her past lovers because that's hardly the right thing to do, but it's so simple and so obvious. It's because it's Gary.

She can feel his breath against her neck, fast and ragged, and she smooths her hand over his warm back, hugging him to her as close as she can until he pushes himself above her and they begin to move together. It's as much give as it is take, and she'd give him all of her if she could. She's certainly given him all of her heart.

Her mind goes pleasantly, blissfully blank as she simply revels in the feeling of their bodies in such perfect unison, the sound of his voice close to her ear, the heat building within her, slowly at first and then with more intensity when things begin to pick up. There's no fumbling, no nerves, nothing except excitement and love and lust and pleasure and the thrill of being this close to someone in every sense of the word.

She wraps her arms around him tightly when she comes, crying out his name, fingers clutching at his back, seeking purchase, anything to hold onto as she's being swept away by sensation and emotion. Through the roaring of blood in her ears she can hear his answering call, feels him shudder against her, and her cheeks begin to ache – she realizes sleepily that she's been smiling the whole time.

Everything's warm and quiet, only the soft sounds of his breathing in concert with hers breaking the silence. His head is resting on her breast, his breath tickling her skin, and she absently strokes his hair with her fingers. She's thought it at least a hundred times since he first kissed her after rescuing her at the train station, but she is so absolutely, completely, entirely in love with this man.

And she finally has those three small words, that he's said to her and her alone.

She feels him smile against her, and when he moves his head to look up at her, those fourteen years she waited seem like nothing compared to spending the rest of her life with him.

And she doesn't need a ring on her finger for that.

_outside on your doorstep_  
_in a worn out suit and tie_  
_i'll wait for you to come down_  
_where you'll find me_  
_where we'll shine_


End file.
